› added 7 years ago

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TIL that after he was shot down and captured by the USSR in 1960, CIA pilot Gary Powers tried not to share intelligence with the KGB, but he was hampered by western press. A KGB major stated "there's no reason for you to withhold information. We'll find it out anyway. Your press will give it to us."

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8eyJL TIL In North America, kingfishers fish. But in tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Australia, most of the roughly 90 species of kingfishers don't “fish.” They hunt in woodlands, where the smaller ones, like the four-inch Pygmy Kingfisher, eat grasshoppers and centipedes.
KRME TIL the iconic promotional image of Willem Dafoe with his hands raised in anguish from movie “Platoon” was inspired by a real photo from the Vietnam War by Art Greenspon who traveled to Vietnam in his 20s to document the war
6E1WQ TIL that Scientists have decoded the meaning of more than 1,500 honey bee "waggle dances," which the insects use to communicate information about food sources.
ePRb TIL that the Inuit saved the bladder of the animals they killed because they believed the soul lived inside. They returned the bladder to the ocean so that the animal could get a new body and hopefully allow itself to be hunted again.
OoxN7 TIL Simon was a ship's cat who served on the HMS Amethyst. In 1949, during the Yangtze Incident, he received the highest medal available to military animals after surviving injuries from a cannon shell, raising morale, and killing off a rat infestation during his service.